Grammys Ads Show the Peculiar After-Effects of Loving Taylor Swift and Lorde

You're never quite the same

The Grammy Awards will make even a long-maned, bearded, hard-rock dude head bang to Taylor Swift, according to this new ad from TBWA\Chiat\Day.

It's a preposterous conceit, even if Taylor Swift's long hair at last year's Grammys show generated the illusion of impressive head banging skills. Hard-rock dudes do not head bang to pop-country music. At least not in public places—even while wearing earbuds.

At the same time, the idea that a fictional hard-rock dude could do so, if he wanted, because nobody would be able to tell what he was actually listening to, is kind of clever. It certainly makes for a fun visual juxtaposition.

A second ad makes a much more reasonable case—that the Grammys make a lot people over-emote while singing Lorde at karaoke, because Lorde proved at last year's show that emoting really hard is the correct way to sing Lorde.

Regardless, Macklemore's bus crashing performance for last year's show, while of dubious authenticity, was definitely more charming, mostly on account of Macklemore's enthusiastic dancing.